


Without You

by missandrogyny



Series: if you ever come back [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Break-up/Make-up, M/M, Pining Grantaire, TW: suicidal thoughts, two idiots pining for each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missandrogyny/pseuds/missandrogyny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Life goes on, but I'm gone, cause I die without you."</p><p> </p><p>  <span class="small">sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/919831">Repetition</a></span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Without You

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Without You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/942186) by [kiii17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiii17/pseuds/kiii17)



> Well.

It's a day in a bigger set of days (he isn't counting, not ever, not since--) and he is tired, lonely, and drunk.

(He almost always is, nowadays.)

The floor is cold on his feet, and there are goosebumps prickling his skin, but he doesn't notice, just stumbles his way to his canvas, his paints in hand. He doesn't bother sketching; his hands know exactly what it is he wants to form, his paintbrush simply an extension of himself. He paints and paints and paints until there is a golden god staring at him from the canvas, his face proud, glowing as if lit from within.

His hands shake and he grabs the bottle on the table and drinks until his hands are steady and his emotions have drowned in alcohol. He stands up, grabs the canvas, and goes out the fire escape, not bothering to put on a shirt. There, he digs out a lighter from his pocket, lights the edge of the canvas, and watches as the bright, beautiful flames engulf the painting.

There is beauty in destruction, they say, and on this moment, Grantaire finds that there is perhaps nothing more beautiful than the way the flames catch on the canvas, reducing it into ash and smoke, to be swept away by the wind and its flights of fancy.

He exhales and digs out a cigarette from his other pocket, lights it with the lighter and inhales deeply.

(He might as well indulge in all his vices, nowadays. Nobody cares enough to stop him.)

It is a day in a bigger set of days, a day in an infinite number of days that seem to blur together from the alcohol and the nicotine in his bloodstream. He can't seem to distinguish yesterday from today from tomorrow, and it doesn't worry him. He can't bring himself to care anymore.

(Infinity is too huge a number.)

\---

It's silent, everything is silent, except for the steady drip drip drip of water from the leaky faucet and the drone of the TV. Grantaire sits on the sofa, eyes trained on the screen, almost as if he's watching but he's not. His eyes soak up the movement, his ears hear the sounds, yet his brain doesn't interpret it, choosing instead to drown itself in thoughts and emotions.

His phone sits on the coffee table in front of him, silent. He picks it up, scrolls through his contacts, before stopping on Enjolras' number.

He should call. He wants to call, wants to hear Enjolras' voice in his ear again, and maybe he can pretend that this never happened.

But Grantaire cannot find the words to convey the depth of his meaning, cannot find the words that enscapulates what he feels. Language, he finds, is severely lacking when he needs it most.

(He does, however, have words he wants to say. They settle in the pit of his stomach, swirling, waiting to be released. They pull him down into the abyss of his thoughts, where his demons reside.

But it hurts too much to say them. So they stay there, buried under all the alcohol and nicotine, behind the plume of smoke and the stink of whiskey.)

\---

_"Hi," he says to the beautiful boy, to the golden god right in front of him. He's a little drunk, okay, more than a little drunk, but the boy is so beautiful and it's not fair. Besides, he doesn't think he'll be able to do this sober._

_The golden god arches his eyebrow. "And who are you?"_

 _"Grantaire," he answers. "Friend of Courfeyrac's, met him....somewhere, I forget. Anyway, that's not the important question."_

_The golden god's eyebrow goes even higher, if that's possible. It probably isn't, Grantaire must be seeing things._

_"Oh? And what, pray tell, is the important question?"_

_"Questions. I have three," Grantaire corrects. "Okay, so the first one. What's your name, Apollo?"_

_"Apollo?" The golden god asks and Grantaire waves his hand. "Okay, my name is Enjolras."_

_Grantaire tries out the name on his tongue, feeling it flow easily, reveling in the taste of it. It fits his tongue like a second skin, and he wonders what it must taste like on the Enjolras' lips._

_"I think I'll stick to Apollo. Next," he says, holding up a finger when the Enjolras opens his mouth to interject. "Can I have your number?"_

_"No," Enjolras answers, and Grantaire snaps his fingers in disappointment._

_"Damn. Okay. Last one. Your plan to eradicate poverty is very idealistic, very endearing, and very very impossible."_

_"That's not a question," Enjolras shoots back, his body straightening, eyes shining. "And it's not impossible, in fact it can be achieved, if the people would just work together. If the people rose above the corruption in the government and helped each other out, povery can swiftly be eradicated. And man is capable of this, because man understands reason and understands the needs for basic rights---"_

_Grantaire reaches out and grabs Enjolras' wrist, and brings it eye level. He produces a pen from his pocket, and uncaps it._

_"What are you doing?" Enjolras asks. He's wary, but he's not pulling away._

_"Since you won't give me your number, here." He scrawls his number on Enjolras' wrist, just below the palm. He can feel the steady thump-thump-thump of Enjolras' pulse, and he tries not to focus on it._

_When he looks up, Enjolras is looking at him curiously. He drops the wrist unceremoniously, caps the pen, and makes his way to the door. "Bye," he calls out. His heart is pounding, what did he just do, exactly?_

_"That wasn't a question."_

_Enjolras' voice makes him stop, his heart still trying to break its way through his chest. "Sorry?"_

_"You said you had three questions. That last statement wasn't a question."_

_"Oh." Grantaire says, and a smirk forms on his lips. He looks straight into Enjolras' eyes, for a few moments, not blinking. "I want you to convince me."_

_And then he stumbles out the cafe, away from the beautiful, golden god whom he's just given his number to, Jesus Christ, what was he thinking? He's not even worthy to breathe the same air as this man._

_He gets spectacularly drunk that night._

\---

(He still doesn't believe.

But he could have.)

\---

Eponine comes to see him, because she's a good friend and she's concerned for him. She doesn't say this, but he can see it her eyes, the way they regard him when she thinks he isn't looking. Eponine understands; she's had her heart broken before, in their college days. She'd been a broken, young woman, with a horrible past, and she'd latched on to the first person to show her the least bit of kindness.

Perhaps Eponine can see herself in him, can see the damaged, scarred girl in Grantaire's eyes. Perhaps she's helping him because helped her, all those years ago, when he'd tried to pick up the pieces of the young girl and put her back together until she became whole again.

"How is he?" Grantaire asks, over boxes of Chinese take-away and cheap wine. He sees her eyes flicker in recognition, and emotions play in her eyes, anger, pity, until falling into a forced casualness. She knows who he's asking about, knows that Grantaire is asking because he's desperate for any news he can get.

"How is who?" She shoots back, reaching for her cup filled with wine.

"You know."

She sighs. "He's...well, he's fine, I guess. I mean, he always says he's fine, and he's going to work like normal, but...."

"But?" Grantaire prompts.

"But, he's, I don't know, different somehow. Subdued."

"I see," Grantaire says, feigning nonchalance. "Good for him, I guess. He's always been too passionate for his own good."

"Grantaire..." she starts.

"It's fine, Ep," he says, waving a hand. "We don't have to talk about it. I mean he didn't want me, anyway. Why would he? I'm a drunken fuck-up and he's, well, he's a god."

She regards him with those knowing eyes again, and Grantaire can almost see the memories playing beneath them, can almost see the poor, damaged girl on his bed, crying about her unrequited love. Oh, how the times change.

He refills his cup of wine and they talk more about Eponine's life and her work. She asks about him after a few minutes, and he spends time detailing what he's doing and the commissions he's been getting. Soon, they're curled up on the couch, watching a shitty movie and getting drunk on cheap wine and he finds that he's content, at least for now.

\---

_"Move in with me?" Enjolras asks, under the glow of a street lamp._

_"Depends, Apollo. Will you walk around naked?"_

_Enjolras playfully punches him in the arm, and Grantaire uses that to pull him closer and kiss him. He memorizes the taste and texture of Enjolras' lips, swallows every little sound he made._

_"Yes, of course," Grantaire whispers when they break apart, and Enjolras kisses him again._

\---

Grantaire is a man broken into a million pieces.

He finds he is nothing but jagged, sharp pieces of a pathetic excuse of a man. He is a worthless, difficult puzzle, a complexity made out of paradoxes that no one understands.

He is a man made out of the most brittle sugar, held together by alcohol, fused together by the burn of a cigarette. Yet he crumbles at the slightest touch, breaking into an infinite number of pieces, never to be complete again.

and all the king's horses

and all the king's men

couldn't put him together again.

(But, oh, there was a knight who tried. A knight who scoured the kingdom for all his infinite parts; the parts swept away by the wind and washed away by the sea. And Grantaire loved him for that, as the knight tried to single-mindedly put him together again, all jagged, rough pieces of him. The knight held him, murmured words into his ear that were as effective as adhesive and tried to make him whole again.

But Grantaire's pieces are infinite, breaking as soon as it was fixed, and soon the knight gave up, sending him away. Grantaire could do nothing but follow, because he loved the knight far too much.

He understands. One cannot completely fix something that is broken.)

\---

_Enjolras is on the desk, reading papers. It's a clear day, the sunlight trickling in through their curtains, catching in his hair. There is a slight crease on his forehead, but even still he looks godly, like a perfect marble representation of Apollo._

_Grantaire has been trying to sketch him for the past half hour._

_(He can't seem to capture Enjolras' perfection on paper; it simply doesn't translate.)_

_There is a certain shade of blue in Enjolras' eyes; as rare as diamond. Grantaire often searches it out, his hands itching to capture it in paints and pencils. However, one could only come across it at a certain time, when the light hits his eyes just so, when Enjolras was filled with so much passion that his eyes blaze. He's seen it in rallies, in cafes with their friends; present for a split second, that shade of blue artists can only dream about, before he turns his head and it's gone._

_"Apollo?"_

_He watches as Enjolras looks up from his papers, his hands setting them down. Enjolras turns to him, forehead smooth, his eyebrow already raised, his lips curled up in a small, tired smile. He tilts his head slightly, and_ there it is _, in that split second before he opens his mouth, there is that shade of blue artists can only dream of._

_"Yes, Grantaire?" Enjolras asks._

_"You're very beautiful."_

\---

(He just wants to see that blue again.)

\---

There are knives in his kitchen.

There is a razor in his bathroom.

There is a lighter in his pocket.

There are bedsheets in his room.

There is the roof of his building.

There are so many ways to die.

\---

He still keeps in touch with the rest of the group, occassionally going out drinking with them. So it doesn't come as a surprise when Courfeyrac invites him to his birthday party.

He's not planning on going, because Courfeyrac is one of Enjolras' closest friends and Enjolras will probably be there, whether he likes it or not. But he hasn't seen Joly or Bossuet in a while, and Eponine is going, so he goes.

He's greeted by warm welcomes and pats on the back, and soon, he's engaged in a drinking game with Bahorel, Joly and Bossuet. But he knows, even through the haze of his drunkenness, the instant Enjolras walks in.

(He's always been especially attuned to Enjolras. His friends are bright spots in Grantaire's life, capable of receding the darkness that resides in him, but Enjolras is the only one capable of _blinding_.)

He stumbles his way to the bar and orders a drink, watching his friends. There, he runs into Raoul, a friend from the gym and they catch up, talking and laughing about their lives.

Eventually, Raoul pulls him into the dance floor and they jump around, laughing. Raoul starts pressing soft kisses to his ear and Grantaire doesn't notice, still laughing and leaning against him.

It ends in Grantaire's apartment, with Raoul's tongue in his mouth and their clothes strewn all over the floor.

(And if Grantaire comes with another man's name on his lips, Raoul is kind enough not to mention that at all.)

\---

_He feels it rather than hears it, a soft gust of air on his shoulderblade._

_"Hm?" he asks, sleepily, because he's so content and warm and so close to sleep. He feels Enjolras press a soft kiss on the junction between his shoulder and his neck._

_"I just told you I loved you," Enjolras says, the smile evident in his voice._

_"Oh," Grantaire says, because that's all he can think of to say right now. His mind is still hazy after the orgasm, and his eyes are closing, succumbing into sleep._

_"Aren't you going to say it back?"_

_"Why would I tell you something you already know?" Grantaire asks, or thinks he asks. He doesn't know if his mouth is moving properly. "Besides, I don't want it to lose its meaning."_

_"Will you tell me something, at least?" Enjolras asks._

_Grantaire is happy, content, and so very sleepy. He tries to think of something to say, but his mind is still too hazy to come up with anything. So he lets his mouth run away, lets his heart speak._

_"You are unparalleled," he hears himself say and he thinks he's smiling. "You are beautiful, and you are to me what Achilles was to Patroclus."_

\----

"Hey," his phone says from its post on the coffee table. "It's me, um, Courf. You're probably still sleeping off your hang over. But, um, it was nice seeing you, wasn't sure if you were actually going to come, because....Anyway." Here, he hears Courfeyrac take a deep breath. "Talk to him? Please? Because he says he's fine but he's not, and he just spends most of his time working and he doesn't eat, I don't think he even sleeps. And he left early yesterday when he saw you with that dude, and I could swear he was almost about to cry. I don't know what happened between the both of you, but just talk to him at least?"

The phone beeps and falls silent, and Grantaire stares at it for a moment, before reaching for his paints and paintbrushes. He makes his way to his easel, where a canvas is already set up, and begins to sketch out a commission.

 _You don't understand_ , Grantaire thinks, as he mixes the paints in his palette. _He sent me away_.

\---

_Enjolras is asleep on the bed, curled around Grantaire. His face is smooth as marble, without the creases and the lines that's usually present. He is still beautiful, but at this moment he is a young boy, not the man with mountains of papers waiting for him._

_He slips out from the bed, careful not to wake Enjolras. Enjolras murmurs and shifts, his forehead creasing, and Grantaire has to stifle a laugh as he reaches over and smooths his forehead out._

_"Do you know," Grantaire whispers, "that I'd die without you?"_

\---

(How many pieces of him are left fused together?

How long before he's nothing, before the wind sweeps him away and the waves wash him away?

How long until there's nothing left of him but a faint smell of paint, whiskey and cigarette smoke?

How long until he's dead?)

\---

He's not complete, he's not a man. He's a pathetic excuse for a man, incomplete, with a hole in his chest he fills with vices.

There are an infinite number of pieces of him on the floor, and he doesn't care, because anyone who ever cared doesn't anymore. He's broken, he's damaged, he's ugly, he's worthless; even the love of his life realized this. He's impossible to fix, a waste of space; he might as well just die.

\---

He sees Enjolras in the cafe, on the phone. He's talking to it, his hand gesturing at the air.

Grantaire watches from his corner table, watches as his gestures begin to grow more passionate, watches as he seems to begin to radiate from within.

Combeferre whispers something to Enjolras and Grantaire watches as Enjolras turns, the late afternoon sunlight hitting his eyes, and in that split second, Grantaire sees, once again, the blue that he's been dreaming about.

Grantaire quickly packs up his things, and practically runs out of the cafe and into the street, off to the closest bar and become acquainted with the bottom of another bottle.

He calls Courfeyrac once he's drunk, crying down the phone and soon, he finds himself in Courfeyrac's apartment.

He passes out on the couch.

\---

_"Enjolras," Grantaire says, because it's the perfect time. He's timed it just so, that when Enjolras turns and tilts his head, he'll see it once again, that rare shade of blue._

_But Enjolras doesn't turn around, doesn't even look up from his computer._

_"Not now, Grantaire, I'm busy."_

\---

(There are so many ways to die.

There are knives in his kitchen.

There is a razor in his bathroom.

There is a lighter in his pocket.

There are bedsheets in his room.

There is the roof of his building.

Maybe he should.

The question is, which one of these would make him forget? Which one of these would give him a reprieve from his demons, from the darkness that fills his body?)

\---

He sits in his flat, suffocating in the silence. His phone sits on the coffee table, as it always does nowadays, and he looks at it, and tries to convince himself to call. To just hear his breath, to hear his voice again.

"I," he whispers in the silence of his flat, and he feels it, feels the words crawling up his throat and they're falling out, off of his tongue. They're vibrations in the air, bouncing and moving and they reach his ears.

"I love you," he hears his own voice say. "And I'll die without you."

\---

_"Grantaire," Enjolras says, from somewhere above him. "Get up."_

_"No," Grantaire mumbles to the floor, where he's currently sprawled out._

_"Grantaire, it's two in the morning, and I have work tomorrow, get up."_

_Grantaire curls himself tighter into a ball. He hears Enjolras sigh and suddenly he's being lifted until he's leaning on Enjolras. They stumble around for a bit, until Enjolras lets go of him and Grantaire flops down unceremoniously, on a bed._

_"Why do you love me?" Grantaire asks, because his mouth can't seem to stop moving. "I'm worthless, I'm half a man, I'm broken and damaged."_

_"Go to sleep, Grantaire. I still have work tomorrow."_

\---

_"Hey Apollo?" Grantaire whispers into Enjolras' ear, from behind the chair. He presses kisses on Enjolras' jaw and down his neck, hoping._

_"What, Grantaire?" Enjolras asks. "I'm busy."_

_"I miss you," Grantaire murmurs into his ear, and lets his teeth graze his earlobe. He wants Enjolras, wants to kiss him and fuck him and curl up against him in the bed. He kisses the nape of Enjolras' neck, and is rewarded by a shiver._

_"Not now, Grantaire." Enjolras says._

_"Please? I want you."_

_"Not now, Grantaire. Next time, okay?"_

_Grantaire sighs, and leaves. Maybe Enjolras doesn't want him anymore, maybe Enjolras is tired of him, tired of having to take care of someone so broken and damaged._

_Enjolras deserves better._

\---

_"I love you," Enjolras says to him, one morning. Grantaire watches, but Enjolras' lips don't curl up, in the way that they used to in the beginning of their relationship._

_The "Do you really?" that comes out of his mouth is unbidden, accidental, and Grantaire watches as Enjolras frowns and his forehead creases._

_"Of course I do," he answers and it takes everything in Grantaire not to scoff._

\---

(This is the moment he realizes that his knight gave up on him.)

\---

He remembers it, remembers it like it was just yesterday, the way he complained about Enjolras' work, and the way he was ignored about it. He remembers the way he riled Enjolras up, getting him irritated, until his mouth formed the words _"I don't think this is working",_ because he knew, at that moment, that Enjolras didn't want him anymore. Enjolras deserved better, far better than a fragile, broken man. He was a god and Grantaire wasn't even a proper mortal, instead a man with a hole in his chest which he filled with vices.

He knew it the instant Enjolras' lips didn't curl up, the instant the shade of blue in Enjolras' eyes disappeared.

 _"If this is a game, I don't have time for this_ , _"_ came out of Enjolras' mouth and Grantaire flinched, because it is most certainly not a fucking game to him. This relationship is the best thing that's ever happened to him, the highest point of his miserable life and Enjolras treats it like shit, and Grantaire realizes that he is never going to mean anything to Enjolras.

 _"I love you,"_ Enjolras said afterwards, and Grantaire wanted to know what it meant because he didn't anymore, because Enjolras had repeated it so many times it became a habit. It became something to simply placate Grantaire with, for Enjolras to pretend that he wasn't disgusted by Grantaire, wasn't sick of the broken man in front of him.

And then Enjolras told him to leave, sent him away like a monarch dismissing a servant, and Grantaire went because he always follows Enjolras, will always follow Enjolras, even as his heart is breaking into a million pieces to join the broken shards of a man on the floor. A mortal always answers to a god, always falls to the feet of a god, despite it going against his beliefs.

He doesn't come back.

_"You should go then. If you're not happy, go. Go to a bar and drink yourself into oblivion."_

("Hello," he had said to his phone, hours later, at the bar, when he'd finally reached the end of three bottles. "Hello, Eponine, do me a favor, please?"

He'd paused, his hands tracing patterns on the bottle in front of him, until he'd found the words to say. "I need to stay at yours for a bit, is that okay? Until I find another place. Also, can you get my stuff from Enjolras' apartment?")

\---

It's two years until they meet again.

Grantaire goes to the cafe because he's short on inspiration and one of his favorite things to do is to people watch. He likes to watch the people in their daily activities, likes to create back stories for them in his head.

He's just entering when his phone vibrates in the pocket of his jeans and he pulls it out, intending to read the message when he bumps into someone.

"I'm so sorry," he says, vaguely apologetic. "I didn't see you there--"

"Grantaire."

His name makes him look up and his eyes widen at the sight of Enjolras, looking older, more tired, but still as beautiful as he was two years ago. He blinks, and a part of him wants to run away from this man who was the cause of all his heartbreak two years ago, but a bigger part of him wants to drink Enjolras in, wants to catalogue the new scars and lines on him.

"Enjolras?" he says, and nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Enjolras' face lighting up, his eyes shining, and suddenly the sun seems miniscule for someone as bright as Enjolras. Enjolras smiles and tilts his head just a little, and oh, _there it is_ , that shade of blue he'd missed.

"Hello."

"Hello, Apollo," Grantaire answers, smiling, because he can't help himself; can't seem to stop the way his heart stretches, taking up all the empty space in his ribs and banishing away the darkness. "How are you?"

"I'm..." Enjolras trails off, his eyes going flat for a moment, getting lost in thought, before his eyes find Grantaire again and he glows like the sun, all fire and light. "I'm great."

And Grantaire can't help the way his smile grows bigger, the way his heart seems to pound its way out of his chest.

"Are you here with anyone?" Enjolras asks, and Grantaire shakes his head, trying to stomp on the flutter of hope he feels in his chest.

"Do you want to, maybe, get some lunch?" Grantaire asks, before he can stop himself, before he can seal the hope he feels in a box and walk away. "Unless of course you're here with someone."

"I'm not," Enjolras says quickly, almost too quickly, and Grantaire has to stifle a laugh. "Lunch....like a date?"

"If that's what you want," Grantaire answers, and he knows, he just knows that Enjolras will get the reference, even if it happened all those years ago, in a library in college. They were young then, with the future ahead of them, and here they are now; older, yet falling into the same pattern all over again. "Are you free now?"

Grantaire knows that Enjolras has work, can easily read it in the set of his shoulders and in the folder in his hand, and he's about to say "it's okay, we can always reschedule" when Enjolras surprises him.

"I am, actually," Enjolras says, and his lips curl up and Grantaire can feel every piece of him fitting together, finding a place in the puzzle that is Grantaire. He's not complete, far from it, in fact, but with Enjolras he becomes a man, rather than half a man, someone, rather than no one.

He goes out the cafe and Enjolras follows, the sunlight hitting them. Grantaire can feel his demons hide, can feel the darkness recede.

(They're not gone forever, he knows. They'll return, they always do. But for now they're gone, because Enjolras is here, because Enjolras is the only one capable of blinding.)

He reaches out and holds Enjolras' hand, lightly, before getting ready to pull away. But before he can, Enjolras tightens his grip on it, intertwining their fingers.

This, Grantaire finds, is the first in a bigger set of days, the first in another infinite set of days. There are a lot of infinities, scattered all over the universe; right now he has this infinity, with a man he'd loved in a previous infinity.

(And maybe, just maybe, they can try again.)

**Author's Note:**

> so this became a series now. i don't know too it's just that my head formed the idea of grantaire's pov and i couldn't stop until i wrote this.  
> there will be one more part after this and then i'm done i promise  
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://jehass.tumblr.com)!


End file.
